The rapidly-growing virtual reality (VR) market has spurred demand for cameras that enable users to create their own content. 360-degree cameras are made available in many forms, a popular form-factor for many novice users being the monoscopic 360-degree video camera. The 360-degree monoscopic video camera can generally record a flat, equi-rectangular spherical video that, when viewed, can be analogized to viewing a world map on a globe. When viewed from a virtual reality headset, one may describe the viewing experience as sitting inside of the globe and viewing the video along the inner surface of the globe.
A virtual reality headset, when paired with motion tracking technology, can give a viewer the illusion that he or she is inside of a scene. One of the downsides to monoscopic videos, however, is that the content is rendered the same for both of the viewer's eyes. That is, the viewer cannot experience the scene as having three-dimensional depth. Another downside is that monoscopic videos, like some stereoscopic videos, can only respond to viewers' rotational motions, as image data for translational motions are unavailable, further limiting a fully-immersive experience. To provide a viewer with a fully-immersive experience, videos must be recorded both stereoscopically, and from many positions around the scene. In this way, the viewer's rotational and translational motions can be considered when the frames are rendered, so that the viewer can realistically perceive depth-of-field within the virtual environment as they are moving about. Needless to say, a lack of depth-of-field in some videos can cause motion sickness, as the visual feedback provided by the virtual headset can confuse viewers when failing to respond to a full range of viewer head movements.